Meet the Orthodox Judge Presiding Over Maduro’s Trial

The trial of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is gripping the world. Maduro’s arraignment was heard in a New York City courtroom, presided over by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old judge who’s overseen some of the United States most famous cases over the past half century.

His Jewish faith has helped him forge his singular legal career.

An Orthodox Jew, Judge Hellerstein has said that his faith has helped him forge his singular legal career.

Facing Anti-Jewish Discrimination

Judge Hellerstein was born in the Bronx to immigrant parents in 1933 and raised in an observant Jewish household. Always a prodigy, he attended the prestigious Bronx Science High School, then Columbia University and Columbia Law School, graduating from law school in just two years. In law school he served on the Columbia Law Review and graduated sixth in his class.

“I thought that I was in pretty good shape. But I found that the gentile law firms were totally uninterested” in hiring a Jewish lawyer, he later recalled. “As a Jewish boy coming to interview at law firms, you met up with very strong discrimination, some of it overt, most of it implied.”

Instead, he clerked for the progressive non-Jewish Federal Judge Edward L. Palmieri. In his first ten years of being a judge, Palmieri hired three Jewish women and four Jewish men to be his law clerks, an unheard-of practice for a non-Jewish judge at the time. One of his clerks, an Orthodox Jewish woman, recalled telling Judge Palmieri that as she was religious, she wouldn’t be able to work on Friday nights or Saturdays until after nightfall. Judge Palmieri replied that would be fine and even volunteered to come in on Sundays so she wouldn’t be alone in the office.

After his clerkship, Judge Hellerstein became a Lieutenant in the US Army, working in the JAG (Judge Advocate General) Corps. He joined the firm Strook & Strook & Lavan where he made his mark handling extremely complex cases. One involved 11,000 pages of transcripts, 600 exhibits, and 60 meetings before arbitrators. At the time, he was one of the only Orthodox Jewish lawyers working for a major law firm in New York City.

In 1998 President Bill Clinton appointed him district judge for the prestigious District Court for the Southern District of New York. As one of the first religiously observant Jewish judges in the US, Judge Hellerstein realized he was paving the way for other Orthodox Jews. “I was pleased to say that after me, that there were others, and some credit me with having broken the precedent. When I became a judge, it didn’t make any difference if I was Orthodox or not. It made no difference if I was religious or not. My capabilities as a lawyer were measured, as well as my character and other characteristics, but there was no discrimination.”

Guided By Faith

Judge Hellerstein has spoken often about the important role his Jewish faith has played in his life and his work. He has also been clear that as a federal judge, his first duty is to uphold the laws of the United States. “I would argue that my Judaism is not a predictable influence on my judgments. Nor would I want it to be the case,” he wrote in a 2013 article for the Law Review at Touro University. He notes that the US Constitution prevents the “unlawful establishment of religion” and that judges must rule according to the laws of the United States, not their own religious feelings if they come into conflict with them. He wrote that “above all (the) influences (on his life), there is one category that stands pre-eminent - the Constitution, statues, and cases that I swore as a judge to follow and uphold.”

“Yet,” he continued, “it cannot be denied that judges are influenced by who they are and how they were brought up…. I am accountable for all my rulings, orders, and judgements to the litigants, to the courts of appeal, and ultimately to God. For as the Psalmist said, and as we read every Tuesday morning (in the Jewish morning service), God sits in the congregation of the judged, rendering judgment on the judge. My rulings…are my record.”

For years, Judge Hellerstein has been known for his empathy. “He, more than anyone, understands deeply the pain” his clients feel, recalled Norman Siegel, a lawyer for families seeking to recover the remains of loved ones who died on September 11, 2001. One of Judge Hellerstein’s former colleagues, Charles G. Moerdler, describes Judge Hellerstein as motivated by “a very high standard of morality and decency,” willing to turn down cases if he didn’t believe they were fair.

Outside the courtroom, Judge Hellerstein has been active in Jewish causes. He worked to free Jewish refuseniks from the Soviet Union and served as President and Chairman of the Board of Jewish Education. He was devoted to his wife Mildred, who died in 2017. The couple had three children; today, Judge Hellerstein is blessed with many grandchildren and a proud legacy both professionally and personally.

“Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue.”

On the wall of Judge Hellerstein’s chambers hangs a Hebrew language quote: Tzedek, tzedek tirdof - Justice, justice, shall you pursue (Deuteronomy 16:20). He has credited these timeless words from the Torah with helping crystalize his legal philosophy.

On the wall of Judge Hellerstein’s chambers hangs a Hebrew language quote: Tzedek, tzedek tirdof - Justice, justice, shall you pursue.

Judge Hellerstein often tells the story of how these words affected a case he tried in which a Mexican national with American residency, Alejandro Orozco, was tricked into driving a truck from Mexico into the United States that contained narcotics. Orozco believed he was transporting groceries. Orozco had a wife and daughter who were American citizens; if he pleaded guilty, Orozco would lose his legal immigration status and be deported to Mexico and separated from them. Judge Hellerstein asked a friend of his to represent Orozco in US Immigration Court. Orozco gained citizenship and tearfully thanked Judge Hellerstein for all his work to allow him to remain in the USA.

“Orozco, weeping, fell to his knees,” Judge Hellerstein described, “thanked me profusely and wanted to kiss my hands, if the Marshals would only let him. I stopped him. ‘All in the courtroom,’ I told him, ‘were engaged in the pursuit of justice - his lawyers, the prosecutor, and the judge.’  I told him the wisdom of Deuteronomy: ‘Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.‘ ‘Justice has to be pursued,’ I told him, ‘because it is hard to find and hard to apply. And since you, Mr. Orozco, enabled us to find justice, we should be thanking you; you should not be thanking us.’”

Be a Good Person

After a lifetime seeking justice, Judge Hellerstein says that trying to be a good person requires constantly questioning oneself, learning Jewish sources, and asking if one is living according to one’s ideals. In 2020, Rabbi Philip Moskowitz of Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida asked Judge Hellerstein what advice he would like to share before Yom Kippur.

Trying to be a good person requires constantly questioning oneself, learning Jewish sources, and asking if one is living according to one’s ideals.

Judge Hellerstein responded with his usual compassion and humility. “I do feel that I have to account for what I do,” he answered. “Part of my accountability is to the Court of Appeals, where I can be reversed, and I often am. Another is my account to the individuals involved directly in the process. And third, I have to account to God. My purpose in life is to be as good a judge as I can be, and I have to ask for strength and wisdom in performing that job.”